from the big-win dept

A very big and important ruling came out yesterday in the 11th Circuit appeals court, saying that police need to get a warrant to track someone's location (via their mobile phone locations). This is a big deal, as we've been discussing for years. Many state courts have issued similar rulings, but many federal courts had gone the other way. While a few district courts had agreed that a warrant was needed, having an appeals court say so is a big deal.

In this case, the defendant, Quartavius Davis, was accused of a bunch of crimes, involving robbing a bunch of stores. Among the variety of evidence against him was cell phone location data -- specifically 11,606 location records. Davis argued that the data was collected without a warrant, violating his 4th Amendment rights (he also has other issues with the way the case was handled and challenges some other aspects as well, but we'll focus on the 4th Amendment issue concerning his location data). The court notes that other courts are still struggling with this issue, and looks to the Supreme Court's famous ruling in the Jones case, involving whether or not a warrant is needed to attach a GPS device to a car. As we noted then, that ruling stopped short of really examining if gathering up location data required a warrant, though some of the side opinions (mainly the concurrence by Justice Sotomayor) discussed the idea. This ruling looks back at some history around the 4th Amendment, and the evolving view concerning "trespass theory" vs "privacy theory," before digging into Jones. The Jones case, you may recall, was decided on the idea that putting the device on the car was a form of "trespass," leaving aside the privacy aspect. But, obviously, this case is different. Thankfully, the court takes some instruction from the concurrences that do discuss privacy theory, and see how they apply in this case.

But, in an important way, the court seems to go even further. While much of the focus in the Jones case was on the "mosaic theory" of linking together a bunch of individual location data points to create a picture that reveals something people expected to be kept private, this ruling notes that even a single data point may be enough to violate the expectation of privacy:

One’s cell phone, unlike an automobile, can accompany its owner anywhere. Thus, the exposure of the cell
site location information can convert what would otherwise be a private event into
a public one. When one’s whereabouts are not public, then one may have a
reasonable expectation of privacy in those whereabouts. Therefore, while it may
be the case that even in light of the Jones opinion, GPS location information on an
automobile would be protected only in the case of aggregated data, even one point
of cell site location data can be within a reasonable expectation of privacy. In that
sense, cell site data is more like communications data than it is like GPS
information. That is, it is private in nature rather than being public data that
warrants privacy protection only when its collection creates a sufficient mosaic to
expose that which would otherwise be private.

The court also rejects the idea that the information is not private just because it puts the defendant near the scene of a crime:

The prosecutor at trial stressed how the cell phone use of the defendant
established that he was near each of six crime scenes. While committing a crime is
certainly not within a legitimate expectation of privacy, if the cell site location data
could place him near those scenes, it could place him near any other scene. There
is a reasonable privacy interest in being near the home of a lover, or a dispensary
of medication, or a place of worship, or a house of ill repute. Again, we do not see
the factual distinction as taking Davis’s location outside his expectation of privacy.
That information obtained by an invasion of privacy may not be entirely precise
does not change the calculus as to whether obtaining it was in fact an invasion of
privacy.

And, finally, the court addresses the famed "third party doctrine" issue, of whether or not Davis gave up his right to privacy to this information because it's been "given" to a third party (i.e., the mobile phone operators). The court is not convinced and (thankfully) explains how Smith v. Maryland (that key case that so many third party doctrine claims rely on) doesn't make sense here, relying on a ruling from the 3rd Circuit, stating that because Davis did not "voluntarily" shared this information with the mobile operator, the third party doctrine does not apply (amusingly, the court even cites the government's own arguments to support the lack of a voluntary handover):

The reasoning in Smith depended on the proposition that “a person
has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to
third parties,” .... The Third Circuit went on to observe that “a
cell phone customer has not ‘voluntarily’ shared his location information with a
cellular provider in any meaningful way.” That circuit further noted that “it is
unlikely that cell phone customers are aware that their cell phone providers collect
and store historical location information.” ... (emphasis added).
Therefore, as the Third Circuit concluded, “when a cell phone user makes a call,
the only information that is voluntarily and knowingly conveyed to the phone
company is the number that is dialed, and there is no indication to the user that
making that call will also locate the caller.” ... Even more persuasively, “when a
cell phone user receives a call, he hasn’t voluntarily exposed anything at all.” ....

Supportive of this proposition is the argument made by the United States to
the jury. The prosecutor stated to the jury “that obviously Willie Smith, like
[Davis], probably had no idea that by bringing their cell phones with them to these
robberies, they were allowing [their cell service provider] and now all of you to
follow their movements on the days and at the times of the robberies . . . .” Just so.
Davis has not voluntarily disclosed his cell site location information to the provider
in such a fashion as to lose his reasonable expectation of privacy.
In short, we hold that cell site location information is within the subscriber’s
reasonable expectation of privacy. The obtaining of that data without a warrant is
a Fourth Amendment violation.

That said, the court still decides to not overturn the original ruling, saying that the court ruled in good faith. However, it still means that future cases will require a warrant for this information (within areas covered by the 11th Circuit). It seems likely that this, or another similar case in a different circuit, will eventually make it to the Supreme Court, but this is a very good ruling in the meantime.

from the tumbling-down dept

A couple of months back, Tim Cushing wrote about a Massachusetts court finding that warrants are indeed required in order for law enforcement to get cell phone GPS data for use in a criminal case. That victory for the Fourth Amendment rights of US citizens was bound to have wide-ranging repercussions within the legal and penal systems. We didn't have to wait long, as one Florida man is appealing his 162 year prison sentence because prosecutors relied in part on locations data obtained without a warrant in his trial.

Lawyers for a south Florida man serving almost 162 years in prison for his role in a string of armed robberies told a U.S. appeals court that prosecutors had no right to use cell phone location data during his trial and the double life sentence without parole was cruel and unusual punishment. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argued that authorities should have had to show probable cause and obtain a search warrant before seeing cellphone records for 22-year-old Quartavious Davis. The case comes as federal circuit and appeals courts around the country have been wrestling with cellphone privacy issues.

Now, it should be noted that the prosecution also had the testimony of several alleged accomplices of Davis', who all received shorter sentences for their cooperation, and this post isn't intended to proclaim his innocence. In fact, he may very well be guilty, which is what makes the government's cavalier attitude towards gathering evidence all the more egregious. If this guy is guilty and walks on a technicality, when better police work could have kept him behind bars, that's on the government.

That said, regardless of his guilt, the sentencing aspect of this case is insane.

The unusually long sentence stemmed from a controversial practice known as "stacking," in which each charge in an indictment is counted as a separate crime. The policy transforms a first-time offender into a "habitual criminal" subject to multiple sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines.

The district court judge said if he had been able to make the decision himself, "he would have given him 40 years with parole," said Shapiro.

Nothing like a little prosecutorial trick to simultaneously make a name for one's self and ensure that justice takes a backseat to politicizing the life-sentence of a man prosecuted with warrantless GPS data.

from the government-states-black-toner-shortage-as-primary-motivator dept

Back in January 2013, the ACLU managed to pry loose two secret memos on the FBI's GPS tracking from the DOJ with a FOIA request. The only problem was that the request didn't actually free much information. The responsive documents consisted of a few scattered paragraphs … and 111 pages of black ink.

The ACLU objected to this mockery of the words "freedom" and "information," noting that secret interpretations of existing laws is exactly the sort of thing the Freedom of Information Act was designed to discourage, not protect. So, the ACLU sued the government in hopes of being given something a little less redacted.

Yesterday, a federal district court ruled that the Justice Department does not need to disclose two secret memos providing guidance to federal prosecutors and investigators regarding the use of GPS devices and other location tracking technologies…

The Justice Department drafted the memos to address those open questions, but it claimed in court that it should not have to turn them over because they contain attorney work-product and sensitive law enforcement information. The district court disagreed in part, holding that government guidelines for the use of GPS tracking do not qualify as sensitive law enforcement information, because “Law enforcement’s use of GPS tracking is well known by the public.” But it concluded that the government may nevertheless keep the guidelines secret, on the ground that the results of DOJ’s reasoning “will be borne out in the courts.”

The documents apparently contain the DOJ's arguments for warrantless GPS tracking, but the American public won't be allowed to find out anything about the government's justification. Instead, the court has decided to take a hands-off approach and "allow" defendants to "discover" these arguments as they're presented in court. Or not, if the government decides its arguments are too super-sensitive to be released and pushes to present these justifications under seal.

As the ACLU notes, it's only because the FBI's general counsel spoke of these two documents during a panel discussion at the University of San Francisco that anyone even knows the secret memos exist and what they're comprised of. Until these arguments are tested in court, the government is free to determine how much privacy Americans are entitled to in regards to GPS location tracking. Fortunately, there are a few legislators exploring other options.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to release the documents, reminding the attorney general that “there is no room in American democracy for secret interpretation of public law…" And if you want to skip right over interpretations of the law and get behind a strong Congressional fix, you can support legislation mandating a warrant for all location tracking here.

On a related note, the FBI has filed a motion for summary judgement in its legal battle over NGI (Next Generation Identification) documents requested by an EFF FOIA request. The agency is trying to keep more privacy-related information out of the public's hands, including more details on its facial recognition program and biometric database. The arguments deployed are largely familiar (release of more info would allow criminals/terrorists to circumvent the new technology), but the end result (if the motion is granted) will be the same -- more secrecy for the government and less privacy for millions of Americans.

Of course, in between point A and point B, you have to imagine someone at the NSA rushed down to the FISA court seeking a Section 215 bulk "business records" order from every American car company for "mere metadata" on every driver in America, right? Just joking. Maybe.

Of course, even if Farley wasn't accurate in his initial statement, it's close enough to true anyway, since so many people carry mobile phones in their pockets, and those are easily tracked as well. In many cases, people are willing to get the benefits of location information, but we don't have nearly enough transparency or knowledge about what's being done with that information, or given the right to control or limit how that information is shared or used.

In an age where so much information is shared with companies, those companies need to move to solutions that involve much greater transparency and controls. Companies making use of your information need to start being upfront about the type of data they collect and how it's being used. The problem with the idea of Ford keeping track of which one of you has a lead foot isn't in that this is possible. Everyone knew it was already possible. It was just been the assumption that no one would actually do it. And that's the kind of thing that needs to change. Companies want to make use of our data, and sometimes it's for very useful purposes -- things that we're happy to get in exchange for the data. The problem is that too often, how the data is being used is hidden from us, and the "benefits" are not clearly laid out. Furthermore, once the data is gone... it's gone, and there are little to no controls about how it's used and shared.

Whether or not Ford in particular is tracking how fast you drive is barely the point. These days, someone is tracking how fast you drive, and as a driver, you should know who it is, and be able to limit how that information is used.

from the but-we'll-see-if-that-stays dept

Back in October, we wrote about the Third Circuit appeals court ruling that attaching a GPS device to someone's car required a warrant. While the Justice Department is now challenging the part of that decision which said that the evidence obtained via the warrantless GPS use must be sustained (the government is arguing for a "good faith exception" to let it use the information under the belief that it was collected legally -- basically saying if they knew it required a warrant they would have gotten one), it has decided to not challenge the larger point that a warrant is needed to attach a GPS device to a car. That's good news, but it's only a little bit of good news.

The government does say that it "respectfully disagrees with the Court's requirement of a warrant to install and use a GPS device" but isn't seeking a review of that ruling. That, most likely, means that it's just waiting for another court to rule on the matter in a different circuit (and hoping for a better outcome) and can pit those two circuits against each other in a Supreme Court review. So, basically, it's just avoiding the issue for the time being.

from the another-shoe-dropping? dept

We all know that Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall have been hinting strongly about the NSA tracking people's location via mobile phone location data. Since the Snowden documents started getting reported on, Wyden especially had ramped up his hints that mobile phone location data still undisclosed would be the real shocker. Back in October, it was revealed that the NSA had done a "pilot program" in the US to track people's locations via their mobile phones, but stopped the program and never used the data. In response to that, Senator Wyden hinted that there was much more to come:

“After years of stonewalling on whether the government has ever tracked or planned to track the location of law-abiding Americans through their cellphones, once again, the intelligence leadership has decided to leave most of the real story secret — even when the truth would not compromise national security,” Mr. Wyden said.

It would appear that "the real story secret" has started to come out via some new Snowden documents reported on in the Washington Post by Bart Gellman and Ashkan Soltani. Basically, while the NSA may not be spying on the location of Americans in the US via their mobile phones, they appear to be collecting location data of pretty much anyone all over the rest of the world to the tune of 5 billion records a day -- so much info that the NSA was having trouble storing it all (now you know what some of the Bluffdale datacenter in Utah is for).

The NSA cannot know in advance which tiny fraction of 1 percent of the records it may need, so it collects and keeps as many as it can — 27 terabytes, by one account, or more than double the text content of the Library of Congress’s print collection.

The location programs have brought in such volumes of information, according to a May 2012 internal NSA briefing, that they are “outpacing our ability to ingest, process and store” data. In the ensuing year and a half, the NSA has been transitioning to a processing system that provided it with greater capacity.

The NSA defends the program by saying that it uses the location data to find "unknown associates of known intelligence targets." Basically, it's tracking where everyone goes, just in case people end up spending time with people the NSA deems as being terrorists. However, that also means that the NSA has an astounding amount of really personal data on where pretty much everyone goes outside of the US, including who they meet with. The ability to abuse that data should be rather obvious. From that data, you can not only determine private business meetings, but you can figure out what doctors people go to, if they're cheating on their spouse, etc. And, given last week's revelations that the NSA has no qualms (at all) about using data on non-terrorists to embarrass them for the sake of embarrassing them, it's not difficult to see how the NSA might do the same over information gleaned from this vast trough of location information.

And, yes, despite the claims by the NSA, it appears to end up getting a ton of information on Americans as well, even if it's not actively collecting data within the US (ah, more "incidental" collections):

Some documents in the Snowden archive suggest that acquisition of U.S. location data is routine enough to be cited as an example in training materials. In an October 2012 white paper on analytic techniques, for example, the NSA’s counterterrorism analysis unit cites two U.S.-based carriers to illustrate the challenge of correlating the travels of phone users on different mobile networks. Asked about that, a U.S. intelligence official said the example was poorly chosen and did not represent the program’s foreign focus.

Elsewhere in the article, they quote NSA officials repeatedly saying that the program is "tuned to be looking outside the United States," but not saying it only collects info outside the US. Also, they make clear, once a person leaves the US, the NSA no longer believes the 4th Amendment applies to them, so their location is fair game in this giant database.. Asked for specific numbers, an NSA person said:

“It’s awkward for us to try to provide any specific numbers..."

And, at that point, they were cut off by an NSA spokesperson who didn't want the person to go any further. In other words, it's "awkward" for the NSA to admit that it's spying on pretty much everyone. Everyone.

Oh, and as for the methods used by some to avoid this kind of thing: getting prepaid lines, disposing of phones regularly, etc. Apparently the NSA is tracking that and it leads to greater suspicion:

Like encryption and anonymity tools online, which are used by dissidents, journalists and terrorists alike, security-minded behavior — using disposable cellphones and switching them on only long enough to make brief calls — marks a user for special scrutiny. CO-TRAVELER takes note, for example, when a new telephone connects to a cell tower soon after another nearby device is used for the last time.

The NSA defends this program, arguing (as it always does) that there's nothing wrong with doing what it's doing. Billions of people living around the globe might disagree.

from the this-is-good dept

One of the more annoying things about the current Supreme Court is how it always seems to figure out ways to avoid actually tackling the key questions that people are asking. For example in the Jones v. US case, the court very carefully tiptoed around actually answering the question of whether or not law enforcement putting a GPS on a car required a warrant. Some of the Justices suggested it should, but it wasn't part of the official ruling. So, it gets left out there in the ether for people to try in other lawsuits. And now an appeals court has ruled on the issue, saying that a warrantless GPS tracking of someone's car is a 4th Amendment violation. The court goes into a full exploration of the 4th amendment and how it applies here. It's well worth reading (starting around page 18). Law enforcement's argument is in for a tough time:

We therefore begin with the following observation:
under the physical intrusion theory of the Fourth Amendment,
the police actions in this case — i.e., physical entry upon and
occupation of an individual‟s house or effects for purposes of
ongoing GPS tracking — are highly disconcerting.

It then goes through a thorough look at each of the government's arguments for why a warrantless GPS search could be deemed "reasonable" and finds each one wanting. The main one is that the government insists that if there's a "reasonable suspicion," they should be able to do a warrantless search. The court's not buying it.

While the interests the police wished to further in this case are
certainly important, the same interests arise in every
investigation where the police have a potential suspect. We
are hard pressed to say, therefore, that the police can —
without warrant or probable cause — embark on a lengthy
program of remote electronic surveillance that requires almost
no law enforcement resources and physically intrudes upon
an ordinary citizen‟s private property.

This is in the third circuit and I'd imagine that there will be an appeal to the Supreme Court. Given the Court's avoiding the question in the Jones case, hopefully it will take it and support the argument that the 4th Amendment does apply to GPS searches and a lack of a warrant is unconstitutional. Of course, what I still don't understand in all of this is why law enforcement seems so averse to actually going out and getting a warrant. Is it really that difficult?

from the under-this-program dept

As we noted last week, Senator Ron Wyden has been repeatedly asking the intelligence community about whether or not they're tracking the location on any Americans, and the intelligence community has steadfastly avoided giving a straight answer (as they do). Specifically, he was asking about whether or not the NSA has in the past, or has plans to, get location data on Americans in bulk. The NSA's Keith Alexander did his "under this program" two step, in which he insists that they are not doing so under this program and at this time. That leaves open other programs and at other times.

A 2009 PowerPoint presentation provided more examples of data sources available in the “enrichment” process, including location-based services like GPS and TomTom, online social networks, billing records and bank codes for transactions in the United States and overseas.

At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, General Alexander was asked if the agency ever collected or planned to collect bulk records about Americans’ locations based on cellphone tower data. He replied that it was not doing so as part of the call log program authorized by the Patriot Act, but said a fuller response would be classified.

So, apparently they are getting GPS data. And if they were getting it from TomTom and other GPS services, then you have to imagine that they might now also include GPS data from the phones that so many of us carry around today. GPS data is even more accurate than cell-site data. And, of course, the data in "this program" appears to mostly come via Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The program that Keith Alexander was referring to in his remarks was the dragnet collection of business records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. So, it's not difficult to see how Alexander might be technically "accurate" with the "not this program" dance, even as lots of Americans' location data is being sucked up via GPS (and potentially cell-site locations) under 702...

from the sadly,-another-one-for-the-'unsurprising'-column dept

The ongoing court battle over warrantless cell phone location tracking continues and the latest decision is another setback for the Fourth Amendment. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that individuals have no reasonable expectation of privacy over their location data. The decision states that location data is a "business record" created by private companies with the implicit consent of cell phone users and therefore are not subject to privacy protections.

[C]ell site information is clearly a business record. The cell service provider collects and stores historical cell site data for its own business purposes . . . the government merely comes in after the fact and asks a provider to turn over records the provider has already created.

The rationale is that cell phone companies are not required by the government to create or retain this data and that citizens are not required by the government to carry or use cell phones, thus making this data subject to the Third Party Doctrine and removing any expectation of privacy.

This rationalization goes counter to the recent NJ Supreme Court decision (unrelated other than in subject matter), which found that location data should be subject to privacy protections for nearly the same reason. Although cell phones aren't in any way "mandatory," the court stated that no one uses a cell phone with the intent of creating a location-specific metadata trail for law enforcement to scoop up without a warrant.

The decision to declare cell phone location data "business records" also plays into the hands of intelligence agencies like the NSA and FBI, allowing them to harvest vast amounts of data on Americans without running the risk of violating their constitutional rights (at least, not according to these interpretations). The court also added that there is some form of recourse for citizens worried about their rights being violated -- but both suggestions are a dead end.

"But the recourse for these desires is in the market or the political process: in demanding that service providers do away with such records (or anonymize them) or in lobbying elected representatives to enact statutory protections."

As the ACLU points out, neither of these "remedies" are likely to result in additional privacy protections.

Regarding the first point, perhaps the court is unaware how opposed the cell phone companies are to even disclosing how long they keep subscriber data. It took a nation-wide public records act request campaign before we received a Justice Department information sheet on how long carriers keep such records. (According to the 2010 document, Verizon keeps historical cell phone records for "1 rolling year" while Sprint keeps them for "18-24 months.") There is no cell phone company that doesn't retain historical cell site location data, or even one that keeps it only for a short time. And anyway, our Fourth Amendment rights should not depend on the largesse of for-profit corporations.

As for pressing for Congressional change, the ACLU has been doing just that for years. (The federal statute the government uses to obtain cell phone location records was written way back in 1986 and hasn't been meaningfully updated since.) But the mere fact that some other branch of government could provide a remedy is no reason for courts to take a pass on protecting Americans' privacy.

Expecting corporations to protect your privacy is, for the most part, a non-starter, especially if these corporations can monetize the data in any way. Furthermore, how many people actually believe the government would allow cell phone providers to simply scrap the data (or anonymize it) once it's served it purpose (monthly billing, for instance), rather than retain it for months on end? Intelligence agencies and law enforcement would simply push for legislation and court orders to ensure this flow of data continues uninterrupted.

In a 25-page dissent, Judge James Dennis pokes holes in the majority's "business records" rationalization, quoting Justice Sotomayor's reservations about the majority's opinion in US vs. Jones:

[In future cases] considering the existence of a reasonable societal expectation of privacy in the sum of one’s public movements[,] . . . it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties. This approach is ill suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers. . . . I would not assume that all information voluntarily disclosed to some member of the public for a limited purpose is, for that reason alone, disentitled to Fourth Amendment protection.

By allowing law enforcement to access "business records" without a warrant, the Court opens up the possibility that these agencies will find a person's internet history, email and contact lists to be similarly devoid of Fourth Amendment protections. Saying one thing is a business record and one thing isn't only further obscures an aspect that needs clear delineation, one that would preferably draw the line before location data rather than attempt to determine which "parts" of a person's cell phone are subject to privacy protections.

We also have to ask why there's such an aversion to obtaining a warrant. In many cases, the information needed is historical. In other cases, when something more current or time-sensitive might be needed, there are emergency orders and other legal remedies (once in the courtroom) to allow some warrantless data collection to be admitted as evidence. The more these battles drag on, the more it appears that these agencies are benefiting from multiple interpretations of outdated laws, a benefit they'd clearly prefer to keep intact. This creates a path of least resistance, which becomes especially problematic when combined with the agencies' natural tendency to collect as much data as possible, "just in case."

from the anyone-still-believe-this-info-shouldn't-be-protected? dept

The ACLU (along with the EFF and many others) has filed an amicus brief in a case of warrantless cell location tracking currently being considered by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. It cites the obvious similarity between this and the U.S. vs. Jones decision, in which the justices concluded that a person's privacy is violated by long-term tracking of their movements.

People carry their cell phones with them all the time. Each time a cell phone makes or receives a call or text message, the wireless provider logs the cell towers the phone connected to during that communication. Cell phone tracking therefore allows the government to reach back into the past and pull up a record of where we have been on any given day.

Lest we forget, this is the same sort of supposedly harmless, non-identifying "metadata" the NSA and FBI are collecting on millions of cell phone users every day, thanks to a very obliging FISA court. In the Jones case, the justices concurring opinion agreed with the appeals court in finding that the long-term tracking (in this case, 28 days) violated the Fourth Amendment. One wonders what this court will make of this warrantless tracking, which ran for nearly ten times as long.

In the case, United States v. Graham, the government obtained a staggering 221 days of historical cell site location information for two suspects. For one suspect, Aaron Graham, this timespan allowed the government to sweep up his location at 29,659 specific points.

The amount of information that can be culled from these data points easily exceeds anything law enforcement should reasonably expect to obtain without a warrant. Aaron Graham worked with his provider and the ACLU in order to provide it with the same tracking information law enforcement had acquired. Here's what the ACLU found.

Mr. Graham's wife was pregnant during the records period. 29 calls during business hours began or ended in the sector where Mr. Graham's wife's OB/GYN's office is located, allowing the inference that they were at the doctor's office at these times.

The most frequently occurring cell site and sector in Mr. Graham's records is the closest sector and tower to his home – nearly a third of all of his calls were placed or received in this sector. Of those 4,917 calls, 77 started in his home sector and ended elsewhere and 226 started elsewhere and ended when he was at home, providing information about his patterns of movements to and from home.

From July 10 to July 15, 2010, Mr. Graham's last call of the night and first call of the morning were either or both placed from his home sector, allowing the inference that he slept at home those evenings. However, on July 9, Mr. Graham's last call of the night and first call of the next morning were placed from a cell sector 30 minutes from his house. Although we have no reason to believe it to be the case here, this information could reveal private information about the status of a person's relationships and any infidelities.

The ACLU points out that technological advancements have made it easier for law enforcement and others to easily collect large amounts of data on any person, making the protections of the Fourth Amendment more important than ever. Just because millions voluntarily use products and services utilizing invasive technology doesn't mean they're implicitly waiving their right to privacy. Nor should it be assumed the use of a cell phone means the "expectation of privacy" is no longer valid.

Once again, it appears law enforcement's m.o. is "do it until someone makes you stop." One wonders what sort of information can be both so vital as to be obtained without the hassle of a warrant, yet still so elusive it could only be ascertained by gathering two-thirds of year's worth of location info. Hopefully, the court will find along the lines of the Jones decision, and continue rebuilding the protections the Fourth Amendment was written to provide.